Surrender - a song

Herre I stand on the precipice
the altar calling from the canyon floor below
The still dark night has ended
and its a long way home

I hear a whisper on themorning wind
my Beloved calls and beckons me come
a voice so familiar it draws me nigh
but its so different I'm pensive to go

I give myself in sweet surrender
put my life in your hands
give my heart to your will
open my spirit to your sweet, sweet love
and surrender

more to come...

Self Control

For the Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.



Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be sef-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

Recentering

Say prayer starts to dry up on your tongue. Sacred literature becomes fallen leaves, blows away. Meditation brings no serenity anymore. Devotion grows brittle, cracks. The God you bow down to no longer draws you.
Say you bow down anyway. You repeat your mantra along the line of your prayer beads, continue chanting the divine names, melodious. You reread the scriptures, go to mass. Why not? THe things of the world are no competition. You long ago lost interest in material gain, in social status, in interpersonal drama. This wretched limbo lasts for years.
Say each of the familiar spiritual rooms you go to seeking refuge are dark now, and empty. You sit down anyway. You take off your clothes at the door and enter naked. All agendas have fallen away. You grow so still in your nondoing that you forget for
a moment that you are or that maybe God is not. This quietude deepens in proportion to your surrender.
Say what's secretly going on is that the Beloved is loving you back. That your first glimpse of the Absolute was God's first great gift to you. That your years of revelation inside his many vessels was his second gift, wherein, like a mother, he was holding you, like a child, close to his breast, tenderly feeding you. And that this darkness of the soul you have come upon and cannot seem to come out of is his final and greatest gift to you.
Because it is only in this vast emptiness that he can enter, as your Beloved, and fill you. Where the darkness is nothing but unutterable radiance.
Say he knows you are ready to receive him and to be anihilated in love.
Can you say YES to that?

YES. I had forgotten. But now I want to find that path
again.

that felt better

so now that I got that out of my system. I can see why some people still think I'm bipolar. PMS wreaks havoc on my stress management systems. At least people know it's only temporary...I hope.


So I stood at the crossroads a week ago. God had given me the strength and discipline to stick to my diet and get outside of myself. I found myself confused again about how to maintain a balance between loving myself, loving my friends and loving God. ...

Ultimately, it comes down to one thing. Choosing to not come back to this crossroads. The left path goes around ina circle and always comes right back to where I am right now. This time I am choosing to go right. To the left is a rocky road. It starts out smooth and has me perfectly able to cope, but the road always gets rocky about the time my PMS sets in. I have a choice. The right hand path is a little rockier on the smooth parts, but it doesn't get as rough when I am PMSing. On the right hand path I am higher up on my list of people to take care of. If I don't take care of myself, I will never be able to take care of others. The right hand path doesn't come back to this crossroads. I goes to a turning point. No choices, just a path on which I am able to be confidant of myself no matter how close I am to that time of the month. So here we go...

To Michelle,
I am sorry. My awkwardness has led to an inability on my part to support you. I call you when I am lonely and write you when I want to be useful. You have been there through so much for me that I want to be there for you but I don't know how. I hope you will continue to let me love you. It is rare that I find someone in this world who has as high a priority on loving people as I do, but I found that in you. You want to love people the same way I do. With integrity, honesty and understanding. You challenge yourself when you think you may not be living up to your own expectations of yourself and I believe you want to see yourself through God's eyes. To see the beauty he sees and to understand why he saw the need to create you as you are. I wouldn't have you any other way and I don't know how to tell you that in the place you are in right now.

To Jen,
You found God. It hurt while you did it, but you found him. You came back with an unwavering understanding of what God wants from you. I have been pushing you away because I am jealous. I still get confused sometimes whether I am doing what God wants from me. Everything I do is hard and I don't know what the quick fix is. You changed so much that I need to get to know you again. I wish I was more important than family to you but I know that will never happen. Not with the family you have been raised in. I want to find a place in your life, to learn how to love you and to support you. You are my soul friend and I like that.

How do you say the things to people that society says we are not allowed to say? We are not allowed to say "I hurt" or I don't know how to handle this". We are to pretend we know what we're doing and hope it works and learn when those things don't work. I have always wished there was a person that would show me how to do things. So here I am. I have chosen the right path and turned the corner. THere is no turning back. I hope I still have my loved ones at the other end of this path.